Dr Rafael Palacios

Contact

Location

338City and Guilds BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

Summary

Rafael is Professor in Computational Aeroelasticity at Imperial, where he has been since 2007. He is Aeronautical Engineer from Universidad Politécnica, Madrid (1998), and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan (2005). Rafael also worked as R&D engineer at Airbus in aeroelasticity and structural dynamics (1998-2001). At Imperial he leads the Load Control and Aeroelastics lab, that investigates computational methods for dynamic analysis, control and optimization of flexible air vehicles and offshore wind turbines. He is theme leader for Offshore Renewable Energy at Imperial's Energy Futures lab and deputy Director of Research at the Department of Aeronautics. He is in the editorial board of Progress in Aerospace Sciences, the Journal of Fluids and Structures and the Journal of Aircraft, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

In 2013, Rafael was voted the best college supervisor at Imperial's Student Academic Choice Awards. For his doctoral research on Aeroelasticity of Smart Structures, he received the AIAA Foundation Orville and Wilbur Wright Graduate Award. At Michigan he was a Fulbright fellow and a Francois-Xavier Bagnoud fellow. He has also been a technical consultant to MSC Software in the development of the finite-element package Nastran, and more recently to Facebook Inc and Airbus Defence & Space in the design of solar-powered aircraft. As a curious fact, Rafael's academic lineage can be traced back to German physicians from the 1700s!